9-3-09

 
9-3-09
Merced Sun-Star
Letter: Losing constituents...GARY PARKER, Merced
http://www.mercedsunstar.com/180/v-print/story/1036309.html
Editor: I wrote an e-mail to Rep. Dennis Cardoza and received an answer that was exactly the same as his stance on health care statement (in other words a form letter). To say that the Democrats have not done a good job explaining what's in the bill is a crock. Mr. Cardoza, you don't know what's in the bill. The more we learn about it, the more we don't want it. As for shouting, if you folks would listen it wouldn't be necessary to shout. This is a political ploy to let the government take more control of our lives. If this does come about, you will hear a shout like never before. If you vote for this bill, I certainly will not support you in the future.
Letter: Answers needed...JAMES MICHAEL RAGUS, Merced
http://www.mercedsunstar.com/180/v-print/story/1036285.html
Editor: Mr. Law, you are absolutely correct! All the way to the second paragraph, semi-colon! From there on it becomes the same Kool Aid the media have been serving up.
As a Democrat, I have questions about cars and appliances for cash, $10 billion for oil drilling off Brazil, Mr. Ayers, the green job czars' Communist past and more. I've received no informational flier about what Rep. Dennis Cardoza thinks on these and more (maybe he found out that I wrote in John Raggio for Congress). How nice it was for health care workers and the Sun-star to have an audience. How about the rest?
Modesto Bee
State sues Bonzi landfill...Garth Stapley
http://www.modbee.com/local/v-print/story/840156.html
State authorities are suing Bonzi Sanitation Landfill for millions of dollars needed to close it by early 2011.
The troubled landfill, at 2650 W. Hatch Road, west of Carpenter Road, also must correct groundwater contamination threatening the drinking water of 300 people in the Riverdale Park neighborhood three miles southwest of Modesto, California Attorney General Jerry Brown demands in the lawsuit.
"These people have really been able to skirt, duck and evade their obligations," said Cris Carrigan, senior staff counsel with the state Water Resources Control Board, which has been on Bonzi's tail for more than 20 years. "It's gotten to the point where the board just didn't think we had any other recourse (than to sue)."
Also, Riverdale Park residents this week received notices to boil water before drinking it for reasons unrelated to the landfill. Water in distribution lines has high levels of bacteria, a relatively common problem that could be corrected in a few days or less, a Stanislaus County official said.
Named as lawsuit defendants are the landfill, parent company Ma-Ru Holding Co., and Miliza Bonzi and Steven Bonzi. Brian Terrell, president and general manager of Rudy Bonzi Inc., said Tuesday he had no comment on the lawsuit. Terrell also said he would discuss with lawyers whether to present to the public the landfill's side of the story.
"(Bee) articles in the past have been so egregious and grossly erroneous," Terrell said. "I am eager to get the information out (to confront) the hysteria that's been created."
A previous lawsuit ended with Bonzi agreeing in 2005 to pay $500,000 in fines, plus $8.6 million spread out in scheduled payments to cover closing costs by 2011. A year later, the landfill had paid $100,000 in fines and $4 million in closing costs, but has not paid more since and is more than $2 million behind, Carrigan said.
Some Riverdale Park neighbors, across Hatch Road from the landfill, said they have little faith that Bonzi will meet the state's demands, and fear that their water eventually will be tainted. Should that happen, the city of Modesto will provide drinking water in pipes already hooked up as a precaution.
"Bonzi shows no intention of doing the right thing," said Kelly Murphy, a resident and member of the Riverdale Park Tract Community Services District. The agency provides water for $25 a month from a well in the path of a contaminated underground plume slowly moving toward the Tuolumne River.
"If you go back and look at all the violations," Murphy said, "it just makes your jaw drop and go, 'What the hell is wrong with these people?' "
State officials have demanded that Bonzi clean up the tainted groundwater since the mid-1980s, about the time the landfill closed to the public, although garbage trucks have dumped loads there since. The late Rudy Bonzi had started the 128-acre landfill in 1967 without a bottom liner or means of collecting liquids draining from the site.
Toxins detected in tests include cancer-causing components of gasoline and metals such as barium, chromium, vanadium, manganese, nickel and zinc.
"The Regional Water Board must ensure that the ongoing threat to groundwater in the Modesto area, including the serious threat to the Riverdale community drinking water supply, is eliminated," said Pamela Creedon, the board's executive officer.
Bonzi may owe an additional $1.4 million in fines for failing to live up to the 2005 judgment, Carrigan said.
"More important to us, though, is getting them to do the work," Carrigan said. "Penalties are fine if they send a deterrent message. But what we really need them to do is to clean up the site. That's the far more distressing aspect of their behavior."
Murphy said: "We'll be glad when they're shut down. I believe it's mandated by their behavior. They've been given so many chances, yet it appears their mission is to get as much money as they can before they padlock the gate."
Years of testing the neighborhood well has turned up no contamination from the landfill. But Sonya Harrigfeld, Stanislaus County's environmental resources director, said residents were warned Tuesday not to drink water before boiling, because of high bacteria levels commonly associated with accidental breaks in water lines.
Murphy said water pumping to fight the July 22 Bonzi fire, ignited by decomposing almond hulls, depressurized his agency's water system, allowing bacteria to enter water lines.
Two other small water systems among 300 regulated by the county also are on boil-water alert. Breaks in water lines shut down water systems in a mobile home park east of Empire, where the owner is supplying bottled water to residents, and at Westley's Hills View area.
"It's kind of unusual for us to have that many going on" at one time, Harrigfeld said.
Schwarzenegger demands response to water crisis...GARANCE BURKE, Associated Press Writer
http://www.modbee.com/state/v-print/story/839803.html
FRESNO, Calif. -- Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger called on the Obama administration Wednesday to intervene immediately in California's water crisis, saying environmental restrictions that have slashed water deliveries to farms and cities were having "catastrophic impacts."
The Republican governor sent a letter demanding a federal response to the state's prior requests to hold talks about reduced supplies from the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, the delicate ecosystem that serves as the main conduit moving water from north to south.
A three-year drought is to blame for the bulk of the state's current water shortages, and it has caused cities to ration their supplies and farmers to fallow a quarter-million acres.
The environmental restrictions, which were designed to protect the estuary's struggling fish populations, also have limited the amount of water pumped to Southern California residents and farmers.
The governor and the farming industry have been pressing the federal government to rewrite plans protecting species like the chinook salmon in a way that will lessen impacts on the water supply.
Idled farmworkers have driven the unemployment rate to nearly 40 percent in some dry pockets of the fertile San Joaquin Valley.
"What is the path forward so we can protect the species as well as the economy?" said California Department of Water Resources Director Lester Snow. "If they have a better way of doing this, they need to come forward with that better way."
An attorney for the Natural Resources Defense Council, which has sued to protect the fish, said the restrictions were based on sound science, and would help support commercial fishermen, who have not been able to fish for two seasons because salmon have been so scarce.
A spokeswoman for Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said the agency was reviewing the letter.
Federal agency sets Nevada Test Site meetings...The Associated Press
http://www.modbee.com/state/v-print/story/840337.html
LAS VEGAS -- The agency that administers the Nevada Test Site is collecting comments for a report about the environmental effect of continued operations at the vast nuclear proving ground north of Las Vegas, along with off-site locations.
The Nevada Site Office of the National Nuclear Security Administration says individuals, organizations and governmental agencies can take part in the Site-Wide Environmental Impact Statement.
The NNSA says it'll hold a public meeting on the process next Thursday (Sept. 10) at the Desert Research Institute in Las Vegas.
Other meetings are set Sept. 14 at the Bob Ruud Community Center in Pahrump, Sept. 16 at the Tonopah Convention Center in Tonopah, and Sept. 18 at the Holiday Inn Conference Center in St. George, Utah.
Public comments will be accepted through Oct. 16.
Fresno Bee
Svanda owes us answers
Full disclosure is needed in matter of testimony on casino...Editorial
http://www.fresnobee.com/opinion/v-print/story/1624562.html
Madera City Council Member Gary Svanda's actions involving the proposed tribal casino in Madera County shows why complete public disclosure is needed when elected officials are representing private interests.
He testified before Congress last year on the need for the casino, and said he was representing Madera city and county. But that wasn't true.
Svanda's trip was paid for by the North Fork Rancheria of Mono Indians, which wants to build the controversial casino. Svanda now says he went to Washington, D.C., as a private businessman, even though that's not what he said in his testimony.
Svanda said it wasn't improper for the tribe to pay for the trip. He hasn't disclosed the cost of the trip, and tribal leaders are calling questions about the arrangement "petty."
They are far from petty. Svanda misrepresented his appearance before Congress and did not report the value of the trip as required by state law. Svanda owes the public a full explanation of the financial arrangements involving the trip.
The Las Vegas-style casino is controversial for several reasons, including not being on tribal land. It's proposed for Highway 99 and Avenue 17.
The North Fork Rancheria is partnering with Station Casinos of Las Vegas, which has filed for bankruptcy. But tribal leaders are pushing ahead with the proposal despite the financial problems of their Las Vegas partner.
Svanda says he did nothing wrong, and that his testimony was only following up on testimony by Madera County Supervisor Frank Bigelow. There's a big difference.
The Madera County board is on record supporting the casino and the county paid for Bigelow's trip. The city of Madera has not taken a position of the casino, and the council did not authorize Svanda's appearance before Congress.
Elaine Bethel-Fink, the tribe's chairwoman, gave an indication of who Svanda was representing: "My thinking is that anyone on my team should have (their travel costs) paid for to promote our projects."
She did not elaborate on what she meant by suggesting Svanda was on her team, but it seems obvious to us.
It's time for Svanda to explain his exact involvement in the casino deal.
Stockton Record
Lawmakers take heat for ‘telephone town halls’...Daniel Thigpen
http://www.recordnet.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20090902/A_NEWS/909019979/-1/A_NEWS
San Joaquin County’s two congressmen have avoided the raucous and rowdy town hall meetings that many of their colleagues have endured during a summer recess spent debating health care reform.
Instead, Democratic Reps. Jerry McNerney and Dennis Cardoza have opted to organize quieter telephone conference calls with constituents, a route Republicans have been swift to criticize.
The two lawmakers say their approach allows them to communicate with far more people than even a packed public square, trading unruly shouting matches for civilized discourse.
“It’s a great way to reach as many people as possible in such a sprawling district,” said Nick Holder, McNerney’s chief of staff. McNerney, of Pleasanton, represents large swaths of San Joaquin, Santa Clara, Alameda and Contra Costa counties.
Republicans have seized on the conference calls, dubbed “telephone town halls,” and contend lawmakers are avoiding tough, in-person questions and confrontations.
“Something this important, (and) they’re running, they’re hiding from this,” said Brad Goehring, the Clements Republican who is challenging McNerney in 2010.
Far from it, those legislators say. Cardoza said some 5,000 people have participated in each of his two conference calls, which last an hour or longer, whereas only a couple of hundred people might be able to attend a public gathering.
“(The phone calls) resemble a regular town hall. It’s just people don’t have to leave their houses to participate,” Cardoza said. “There are some people who are agitating for something different. They want to make news. That’s fine, that’s their right.”
On top of those two conference calls, the Merced lawmaker said he has held roughly 30 meetings with doctors, ministers, labor organizations, activists and other groups in recent weeks.
“I have a pretty good idea of the challenges on the pro side and the challenges on the opposition side,” Cardoza said.
McNerney, too, has held similar meetings with groups and “listening tours” of health facilities.
In each of the two calls McNerney and Cardoza have held, thousands of constituents were called at one time. Those who picked up the phone and chose to stay on the line could participate, they said.
Holder said McNerney was able to field about 10 to 20 questions per session.
Claire Lima, a 60-year-old Lodi resident, said she was frustrated by her experience with McNerney’s conference calls, because she said she had little notice and little time to participate.
She also said she prefers face-to-face interaction because it holds elected leaders accountable.
“I could understand it if (McNerney) was trying to poll the constituency from Washington (D.C.), but when they’re actually on break and in the district, I think they should hold themselves to the constituency in person,” Lima said.
“There’s a great deal that can be learned by a person’s body language,” she said. “The way they present themselves, you can tell how thoroughly they know the material, or if they’re reading it off a script, and you can believe what they’re saying.”
Lodi wastewater sale to net $1M...Daniel Thigpen
http://www.recordnet.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20090903/A_NEWS/909030335/-1/A_NEWS
LODI - Lodi may get a much-needed cash infusion to its ailing coffers; it'll just have to wait a few years.
The City Council on Wednesday approved an agreement to sell recycled wastewater to a consortium of municipal utilities building a new power plant in Lodi.
Under the deal, Lodi will generate about $1 million a year for its general fund, which pays for many basic city services and has been hammered by the economy in recent months.
The conglomerate - the Northern California Power Agency, of which Lodi is a member - will use the recycled wastewater to cool the proposed 255-megawatt natural gas power plant. The steam, in turn, will be used to help generate electricity as well.
State regulators are reviewing plans for the proposed power plant, slated for 4.4 acres of city-owned land near the city sewer plant, off Interstate 5. More than a dozen public utilities from throughout the state, including Lodi, will use power generated at the plant once it is built.
The power plant, if approved by regulators, is expected to start operating in 2012.
Lodi will sell, at a minimum, $960,000 a year worth of recycled wastewater under the deal, which must be approved by all the utilities participating in the power plant. The consortium will have the option of purchasing more water if needed.
Lodi also is expected to receive at least an additional $1.4 million in new sales tax revenue through the consortium's purchase of power plant equipment that will be used in construction, officials said.
The water deal is one of several elements to the wide-ranging agreement with the Northern California Power Agency approved Wednesday. Also included is a cleanup plan for contamination at the future plant site.
The site was used years ago to store waste during repairs to sludge ponds, officials said, and several contaminants, including metals, pesticides and combustion byproducts, were found still lingering underground.
State regulators are requiring that the parcel be cleaned up, because it could pose a hazard to construction workers if the plant is built, city officials said.
Cleanup cost estimates range from $320,000 to $1.3 million. City officials said the power agency will front the cleanup expenses in lieu of future lease payments and other fees to the city in the first years the power plant is operated.
Will deflation cut property tax bills?...Reed Fujii
http://www.recordnet.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20090903/A_BIZ/909030339
Property tax revenues - already undercut by the collapse in real estate value values - may take another hit because of the recession, state and local tax officials said Wednesday.
In the more than 30 years since California's Proposition 13 tied increases in property assessments to the Consumer Price Index, inflation bumped up annual tax bills from 1 percent to the maximum 2 percent. It has never gone down.
If current deflationary trends continue, however, this might be the year Proposition 13 valuations decrease, the state Board of Equalization advised county tax assessors Wednesday.
Officials noted the Consumer Price Index for California dropped sharply from October to December, falling about 3 percent. It has been rising ever since, however.
The final figure will depend on what happens between now and the end of October, the end of the year used to set the Proposition 13 multiplier, said Ken Blakemore, San Joaquin County's tax assessor.
In a normal year, the owner of a $100,000 home would expect to see the maximum inflation adjustment of 2 percent, to $102,000 valuation.
"So your taxes would go up 20 bucks," Blakemore said Wednesday.
Proposition 13 sets no limit for any downward adjustment based on consumer prices.
However, current estimates are that the multiplier will be neutral, Blakemore said. But it will depend on which way consumer prices go in the next two months.
"Right now, it's a crap shoot. We don't really know," he said.
Property owners are sure to welcome any tax savings.
But a deflationary assessment drop is just another ding for local governments and special districts already hammered by deep slashes in state funding and an earlier rollback in county tax assessments.
In July, Blakemore announced a nearly 11 percent drop in the San Joaquin County property tax roll, to $55.4 billion, reducing expected revenues by about $66 million from last year. That rollback came from Proposition 8, which gives owners a break if their property's market value falls below its Proposition 13 base
assessment.
After more than 30 years of incremental increases, local government has come to count on the annual 1 percent to 2 percent bump, Blakemore said.
Thus, if inflation comes in at zero for the year, he said, "There's about a half-billion dollars we're not going to be picking up. So, another hit to the county's coffers."
San Francisco Chronicle
Let golfers play through on Sharp Park course...Editorial
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/09/03/EDN019GUJ6.DTL&type=printable
Golfers teeing off Sharp Park course in Pacifica have more to worry about than a slice or hook. The beachside course, run by San Francisco's parks system, is home to a colorful snake and bug-eyed frog whose advocates want the 18-hole muni course sharply altered, if not eliminated.
Both duffers and environmentalists are waiting on a study before the next round, which could be a court fight over federal protections involving the San Francisco garter snake and red-legged frog, whose numbers have plummeted to danger levels because of development. City leaders also may pull a lifeline subsidy for the money-losing course.
Before the battle gets that far, San Francisco officials should consider a compromise that would let both golfers and nature lovers co-exist. At issue are both a low-priced course ($24 for a weekend round) and habitat for two signature species. One idea: a nine-hole course with the remaining fairways restored to wetlands. Another option: Preserve the course's most historic holes.
So far, the arguments are building to a needless all-or-nothing showdown while the city prolongs its homework. An overdue study by the city Recreation and Park Department is weighing three options: Keeping the present course with extra mitigation steps, reducing the fairways by half, or ending all golf in favor of restored wetlands.
Sharp Park, the creation of famed course designer Alister MacKenzie, deserves to stay open. Along with its loyal users, the surrounding city of Pacifica wants to keep it. The course's low greens fee draws budget-minded players who can't afford other spots. Also, Sharp Park is one of the oldest around, dating the 1930s when it opened on land donated to San Francisco.
Opponents note that the course subsists on a city subsidy. But so do nearly all other recreation programs. Another option - turning it over to the federal Golden Gate National Recreation Area - would mean losing city control and a say in Sharp Park's future.
Golf operations don't work for some wild creatures, at least the two at issue. Lawn mowers, chemicals and golf carts all jeopardize the frogs and snakes, whose presence was first noted back in the 1940s.
There is an distinct air of political and legal convenience in making Sharp Park the battleground over the endangered snake. Its habitat losses have been significant around San Francisco International Airport - but the snake's defenders recognize the futility of trying to shrink the footprint of a major airport.
This 77-year-old public golf course is worth preserving too - even if it must be modified or scaled back to accommodate the reptiles that share a gorgeous setting along the Pacific.
Indybay
Tell Senator Steinberg - Don't rush a bad decision on water legislation!...Dan Bacher
http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2009/09/03/18620607.php
Below is an urgent action alert from Friends of the River to make phone calls and emails to Senator Darrell Steinberg to urge him not rush into the kind of potential policy disaster that created California’s unsuccessful and costly experiment in energy deregulation! The link is: https://secure2.convio.net/fotr/site/Advocacy?cmd=display&page=UserAction&id=225
After you make your phone call and emails, please sign the petition against the peripheral canal on the California Sportfishing Protection Alliance (CSPA) Website at http://www.calsport.org.
Please send this to everybody that you know! We must stop Steinberg's attempt to fast track water legislation that will lead to the construction of a peripheral canal or tunnel, a government boondoggle costing $23 billion to $ 53.8 billion.
Tell Senator Steinberg - Don't rush a bad decision
CALL TODAY!
In addition to sending your email to Senator Steinberg, call his district office at 651-1529.
Give them your name and address (so they know you are a constituent) and urge the Senator to not rush passage of the complex Delta water bill package.
The rush to pass this water package will likely result in unintended consequences to California’s environment and is certain to increase our state debt.
Legislative leaders have joined five separate bills into a package that will supposedly help restore the Delta and improve water supply reliability. The bills are SB 12 (Simitian), AB 39 (Huffman), AB 49 (Feuer), SB 229 (Pavley), and SB 458 (Wolk). Senator Steinberg’s intent is to finalize the bills and have full Senate and Assembly floor votes on the entire package before the Legislature is scheduled to adjourn on September 11 yet many key provisions of the bills have yet to be fully fleshed out. To read more about our concerns about some of these bills, click here.
The negatives far outweigh the positives
There are a number of aspects of the bill package that are positive for the environment. However, the negative provisions of the package far outweigh the positives. One of the most disturbing provisions in the legislative package is the one that gives the Governor the power to appoint a majority of a “Delta Stewardship Council” that will decide whether to build the controversial Peripheral Canal, how big a canal should be, and how it will be funded. Given that the canal is now estimated to cost as much at $54 billion, it is cowardly of the Legislature to delegate to an elected body this controversial and costly decision. The council will have the power to decide how much you, the taxpayers, will pay to continue to subsidize water for corporate agribusiness in the southern Central Valley and southern California developers. Click here to learn more.
Your Money, Your Debt
Conservationists are also alarmed that the legislative package will be tied to a controversial $12 billion water bond to fund new dams to supply additional fresh water for central valley farmers and southern California. The problem is that new dams will not solve the drought or significantly improve water supplies in most years yet the Republican Caucus in the Legislature has promised to oppose and the Governor has vowed to veto any water legislation package that fails to include a multi-billion dollar water bond. As a California taxpayer, your debt on a $12 billion water bond will be more than $760 million a year for 30 years. This will be taken out of the state’s general fund from public safety, health, education, and environmental protection programs that have already been slashed to the bone. This is not the time to be passing multi-billion dollar bonds for expensive dams that will not help with our drought situation.
The water bond is not the only financing options under consideration by the Legislature. The current bill package permits the Delta Stewardship Council to charge a “water user fee” to anyone who diverts and uses water upstream of and from the Delta. This means that Sacramento water users will see an increase in local water rates. Not a bad idea since Sacramento needs to improve its sewage treatment and water conservation programs. But the Delta Stewardship Council will get to decide how the money raised from the water user fee will be spent.
We deserve thoughtful water policy
Doing nothing about the Delta is not an option. But rushing forward in the next few days to pass the complex legislation as currently written is a public policy fiasco. Please email and call Senator Steinberg today. Californians deserve a good water policy package that is given full deliberation in the Legislature and not rushed into law.
Please utilize our sample letter below - feel free to change the contents of the letter to express your concern to Senator Steinberg: https://secure2.convio.net/fotr/site/Advocacy?cmd=display&page=UserAction&id=225
Monterey Herald
CSUMB redevelopment suit settled
FORA, Marina, CSUMB end legal battles...The Monterey County Herald, Herald Staff Report
http://www.montereyherald.com/local/ci_13260068?nclick_check=1
CSU-Monterey Bay, the city of Marina and the Fort Ord Reuse Authority signed an agreement Wednesday that ends a decade of lawsuits and failed negotiations, the university reported.
The agreement details how issues of transportation, water and wildlife-habitat mitigation will be handled as the university grows.
The legal battles prompted a 2006 state Supreme Court decision that said CSUMB isn't exempt from redevelopment charges.
"The completion and signing of this agreement is an historic milestone for all of our organizations and communities," CSUMB President Dianne Harrison said in a prepared statement. "I appreciate the fact that FORA and Marina officials understand the importance of CSU-Monterey Bay to its region and surrounding communities."
The document will allow CSUMB to move ahead with plans for the Institute for Innovation and Economic Development. The proposed 10,000-square-foot institute, to be built at Gen. Jim Moore Boulevard and Divarty Street, will be a resource center for researchers, entrepreneurs and business people.
Los Angeles Times
California high-speed rail commission set to award contract to group with ties to Schwarzenegger
A $9-million public relations deal is set to go to a firm led by the governor's top political advisor and his former campaign manager. Ethical questions are being raised...Shane Goldmacher
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-rail3-2009sep03,0,2034015,print.story
Reporting from Sacramento
California's high-speed rail commission, dominated by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's appointees, is set to award a $9-million contract today to a company led by the governor's top political advisor and his former campaign manager.
The three commission staff members charged with recommending a public relations firm have advised the board to give the contract to Mercury Public Affairs at its meeting today. Schwarzenegger strategist Adam Mendelsohn is a partner at Mercury, as is Steve Schmidt, who managed the governor's 2006 reelection effort.
Two members of the staff panel are former Mendelsohn colleagues.
Ethics watchdogs raised questions about the appearance of favoritism.
"You can't help but raise your eyebrows," said Kathay Feng, executive director of California Common Cause.
"We are seeing a revolving door of legislators and former state officials and state employees going from public service to private PR firms . . . and pulling on all the personal relationships that they've developed to build up their business."
One member of the staff panel, Jeffrey Barker, previously served as associate and deputy communications director in the governor's office, working daily with Mendelsohn. Barker also worked with Schmidt.
A second panel member, Michael Bowman, also has ties to Mendelsohn and the Schwarzenegger administration. Bowman was deputy secretary for communications of Schwarzenegger's Business, Transportation and Housing Agency, and Mendelsohn served as the governor's communications director.
Barker, now deputy director of the California High Speed Rail Authority, said the panel followed a "regimented process" and that there was no conflict of interest.
"We evaluated these proposals based strictly on communications and outreach abilities," he said.
Barker said he and Bowman "knew members of every single [public-relations] team that came in," not just those at Mercury. He did not consider recusing himself, he said.
Mendelsohn said there was "absolutely not" a conflict.
"We have full confidence that the extensive campaign plan that we developed was superior to any other plans put before the committee," he said.
Mendelsohn cited Mercury's "issue expertise," noting that Tracy Arnold, who previously served as Schwarzenegger's high-speed rail point person, is on the company's staff.
California voters approved a nearly $10-billion bond last November to begin building a high-speed rail network connecting Southern California to the Bay Area and Sacramento.
The contract runs through June 2014. The $9-million public relations effort is needed, Barker said, because "up to this point there hasn't been enough outreach, and the public doesn't have the information about this project that they demand and deserve."
Four of the nine commissioners who will vote on the contract today were appointed by Schwarzenegger; a fifth continues to serve at his pleasure. An additional rail board member, Tom Umberg, was appointed by former Assembly Speaker Fabian Nuñez (D-Los Angeles). Nuñez is also a partner in Mercury Public Affairs.
California Legislature on the verge of major achievements
Lawmakers need to take small steps toward compromise to reach decisions on significant bills involving water, renewable energy and prisons....George Skelton, Capitol Journal
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-cap3-2009sep03,0,5616609,print.column
From Sacramento
The Legislature is on the verge of two major achievements -- on prisons and water -- if lawmakers can be calm and rational during the final week of this year's regular session.
That means cooling the heated rhetoric -- particularly the staff-produced nastiness -- and sustaining an amiable climate for compromise.
It also means settling for the merely significant rather than insisting on the spectacular. It's about what is politically feasible, not what's pure fantasy.
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger will need to be a partner, if not a leader. Incrementalism goes against his nature. He's a giant-leap type of guy. But he's also a lame duck running out of room. Leaps may no longer be possible, if they ever were.
After all, one of Schwarzenegger's proudest accomplishments -- lowering workers' compensation costs for business in his rookie year -- was partly the result of incrementalism begun under Gov. Gray Davis.
Besides prisons and water, there's another important bill with long-term consequences that's nearing passage. It's about renewable energy.
Under the measure, by Sen. Joe Simitian (D-Palo Alto), 33% of the electricity produced by California utilities by 2020 would have to come from renewable energy sources. The fight is over how much of the renewable energy could be generated out of state. Labor unions are pushing for mostly in-state generation, as is Senate leader Darrell Steinberg (D-Sacramento).
Renewable energy "ought to be a California industry," he says.
The big trophies for the Legislature, however, would be prisons and water:
* Prisons. The goal is threefold: to reform a system that has the worst-in-the-nation recidivism rate -- 70% -- for inmates released from prison. To begin substantially reducing the overcrowded prison population before federal courts do, as they've threatened. And to save the $1.2-billion already slashed from the prison budget on paper, but not in reality.
There apparently will be no compromising with Republicans. They're having no part of it, playing the law-and-order card as they have for decades -- advocating long lockups but opposing any tax increases to pay for the bulging prisons.
"Don't vote for the time unless you'll spend the dime," admonishes former Assembly Republican leader Pat Nolan of Glendale. Nolan's an expert on politics and prisons. In the 1980s, he was a self-described "tough-on-crime" legislator. Then he was convicted on a corruption charge and spent 29 months in federal custody. Now he's a prison reformer.
"The biggest mistake California conservatives make is not looking at corrections as just another part of the budget," he says. "It's like national-level Republicans voting for defense systems without looking for cost-effectiveness. . . .
"I equated tough on crime with safer streets. But Californians are no safer than residents of states that have cut prison populations."
One thing that's needed, he and other reformers contend, is more education, drug rehab and job training for inmates. Another is a better parole system. A scaled-down bill passed by the Assembly on Monday seeks to encourage the former and achieve the latter.
Inmates could earn credits toward earlier release by completing ed, rehab and job courses, assuming California's prison's had enough money and space to offer them. And high-risk parolees would get tighter supervision. Low-risk ex-cons who hadn't committed a serious offense would be on their own and not subject to re-incarceration for parole violations. They'd only be sent back for committing another crime.
Matthew Cate, the state's prison boss, calls these "excellent reforms." But he says they don't solve "the long-term overcrowding problem" and leave a $230-million budget hole.
Schwarzenegger and Cate favor a Senate-passed bill that includes alternative custody -- the ability to transfer the fragile elderly and low-risk inmates with less than a year left on their sentences to home detention with GPS monitoring.
Steinberg and Assembly Speaker Karen Bass (D-Los Angeles) are trying to restore much of the Senate version, which also included an independent commission to update California's sentencing structure. But their problem is Assembly Democrats. Some are scared of being portrayed as a crime softie by a future campaign opponent. Steinberg took a shot at them Tuesday.
"It's time to say, 'Come on,' " the Senate leader told reporters. "We have a law-and-order Republican governor who is willing to sign a comprehensive package with absolutely essential reforms that protects public safety. It's time to get real.
"We all get politics and everybody has ambition. . . . But we have a job to do here."
Steinberg and Bass may coax more votes from the skittish Democrats.
But if they can't, the good-time incentives and parole improvements alone would be worth passing. They'd mark substantial progress toward prison reform.
* Water. Steinberg says this is his "biggest priority" -- "absolutely essential for California" and "the best opportunity we have to show we can do something big."
Bass concurs: "After deficit, deficit, deficit, water is important psychologically. It's important that we come out of this with a significant victory and water would do it."
The water bill will be shaped by a two-house panel that began meeting Wednesday.
The goal is many-fold. But the most important is to restore the ecosystem and remodel the plumbing of the collapsing Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, the hub of California's waterworks. To do that, Democrats want to create an independent governing body.
Conservation and new water storage -- underground and reservoirs -- will be part of any package.
And a key sticking point will be over who pays -- water users, mostly, but also taxpayers through bonds.
Any compromise will require a relatively small bond, at least initially -- certainly not in the $11-billion range Schwarzenegger previously has proposed.
Incremental steps are better than standing still or falling backward.
 
9-3-09
Meetings
9-8-09 Merced County Planning Commission meeting...Canceled
http://www.co.merced.ca.us/CurrentEvents.aspx?EID=361
 
9-8-09 Merced City Council/Redevelopment meeting...7:00 p.m., Tuesday
http://www.cityofmerced.org/depts/cityclerk/agendas/2009_city_
council_agendas.asp
Not posted at this time.
 
9-9-09 MCAG...Technical Review Board meeting...12:00 p.m.
http://www.mcagov.org/trb.html
 
9-9-09 Merced City Planning Commission meeting...7:00 p.m.
http://www.cityofmerced.org/depts/cityclerk/boards_n_commissions/
planning_commission/2009_planning_commission/2009_planning_
commission_agendas.asp
Agendas are posted the Monday before a Wednesday Planning Commission Meeting.